CHICAGO - Surprising research suggests that childhood cancer is most common in the Northeast, results that even caught experts off guard. But some specialists say it could just reflect differences in reporting.
The study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based on data representing 90 percent of the U.S. population. It found that cancer affects about 166 out of every million children, a number that shows just how rare childhood cancers are.
The highest rate was in the Northeast with 179 cases per million children, while the lowest was among children in the South with 159 cases per million. Some experts suggested that could mean cases were under-reported in the South and over-reported elsewhere.
The rates for the Midwest and West were nearly identical, at 166 cases per million and 165 per million, respectively.
A total of 36,446 cases were identified in the study, which analyzed 2001-03 data from state and federal registries. The research appears in the June edition of Pediatrics, released Monday.
Dr. Rafael Ducos, a children's cancer physician at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, said the South's low rates were perplexing and might simply reflect
under-reporting there and over-reporting in other regions.
"I'm at a loss to explain it," he said.
Environmental factors might play a role, including exposure to radiation, said lead author Dr. Jun Li of the CDC. Radiation has been linked with the most common types of childhood cancer — leukemia, lymphoma and brain cancers.
Radiation sources include X-rays, nuclear plant emissions and natural sources such as radon gas. But Li said research is needed to determine if these sources vary enough by region to affect childhood cancer rates.
Dr. Lindsay Frazier, a cancer specialist at Children's Hospital Boston and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, said pollution and housing stock that's older than anywhere else in the nation might help explain the Northeast's higher rates.
"As a parent raising a family in the Northeast, this does not at all increase my concern for my family or for my neighbors," Levy said, adding, "First and foremost, these are still very rare diseases in children."
Regional differences in rates for some specific cancers have been found in adults, but these are likely due to personal habits and lifestyle factors, Ward said. For example, lung cancer rates are high in the South because smoking is generally more popular there, she said.
But it generally takes years of exposure to lifestyle factors such as smoking before
cancer develops, she said, so this wouldn't explain children's rates.
I don't mean to sound cocky, but it doesn't take a scientist to figure out why there are higher cancer rates in the northeast portion of the United States. It is really alarming that of the scientists involved in these studies, none of them could come to the conclusion I came to immediately after reading this article. Why aren't science geniuses also blessed with the common sense gene???
HERE IS WHY THERE ARE HIGHER RATES OF CANCER IN THE NORTHEAST:
GET A LOAD OF THE PROPAGANDA THE GOVERNMENT WAS FEEDING PEOPLE IN THE 1950s. Just hide in a shelter for two weeks and rinse off fruit before eating it -- BAHAHAHA!! this one is even better:
But I regress...
Back to my point: I hope you noticed the part about the "down winds" when the map was shown in the first video. If not, here it is:
As you can see, all pollution and yes, particles from the HUNDREDS of nuclear bomb tests that have occurred in Nevada since the 1940s... get whisked to the east coast from the west by down winds. So it's no wonder why there are higher cancer rates in the northeast. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that virtually every person who has lived in the United States since 1951 has been exposed to radioactive fallout. And the fallout hovers over the east coast longer than the west coast.
I also have a problem with the author's ending statement: "...lung cancer rates are high in the South because smoking is generally more popular there, she said. But it generally takes years of exposure to lifestyle factors such as smoking before cancer develops, she said, so this wouldn't explain children's rates." ARE YOU SERIOUSLY A MEDICAL WRITER?! AND DID YOU REALLY SPEAK WITH A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL??? Smoking wouldn't explain the children's rates?!? Nobody besides myself factored in second hand smoke (oh, the irony) nor the probability of carcinogens the child faced while in the womb?!!
THIS IS COMMON SENSE. Articles like these make me livid because it proves tax payers are funding USELESS scientific studies run by clueless scientists. Not all scientists are clueless and not all scientific studies are useless, i know, but most scientists and companies are polluting the earth by creating even MORE household chemicals (that ad agencies convince you that you need) which work their way into our water supply and contaminate our drinking water.
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